The Divine Narrative

 

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The Bible, as it has been handed down to us, is filled with errors and often depicts God as a cruel deity. This becomes problematic if one views everything in it as the inspired Word of God. The solution to this issue lies in how one chooses to understand inspiration. The Bible did not fall from the sky, and just because God inspired its writing does not mean that everything in it is of God. The key is to understand the Divine Narrative, which is sometimes found in the flawed presentation of the humanity of the author.

One way to achieve this understanding is to consider Paul's instructions to Timothy about rightly dividing the Word of truth. To do this, one must recognize that there was no single "Word of truth" during the time of Christ. Every Jewish community had its own set of scriptures and its own editors, or "scribes." These scribes divided the word based on the traditions they belonged to, often adding or removing from their texts.

This might come as a shock to some, but editing was considered a sacred duty. Scribes were tasked with removing errors from their texts, guided by their traditions. It might be of a surprise to many, but the  Hebrew scriptures, as we know them, were edited all the way into the 10th century CE by the Jews, primarily to remove elements that Christians used to prove that Jesus was their Messiah. This is well-documented in history. For instance, a 2nd-century Rabbi, Shimon bar Yochai, cursed anyone who used the term "Sons of God" for passages like we find in Deuteronomy 32:8 and insisted it be changed, and it was  it became  "Sons of Israel."

Similarly, Christian scribes edited their texts based on their traditions, adding and taking away. For example, the last part of Mark's Gospel is an addition by a scribe and not the original author. This editing continued until the 4th century when the Church established the canon of scriptures, and it has remained in this form since. Consequently, the work of editing these texts ceased, leaving us with many errors that are easily identifiable.

Returning to the idea of "rightly dividing the truth," now that we know the Bible is a work of editing, we can follow this teaching. While we cannot edit the texts, we can, like the scribes, seek out the Divine Narrative. This involves leaving out or ignoring elements that contradict this Narrative. For instance, recognizing that the instruction in Numbers Chapter 31 to take sex slaves is not of God, and viewing any scientific claims in the Bible as purely the product of the human author.

Just because God inspired the Bible as we know it today does not mean He removed the humanity of the authors. It should be evident what is purely human. The humanity is there for the greater narrative, and it is our duty to sift through the scripture to find that Divine Narrative. Although we cannot use an eraser like the scribes because we have a canon, we can use our traditions of faith and our understanding of God's goodness to discern what is of God. The Divine Narrative is in the Bible if we are willing to seek it out.